Freshman coaches set to debut in the SEC

Arkansas' Bret Bielema, Auburn's Gus Malzahn, Kentucky's Mark Stoops and Tennessee's Butch Jones will make their debut this season in the SEC.

Freshman orientation is an important time for a new college student.

Thousands of eager first-year students will begin their first college experience this week, eager to make a good first impression.

Four new coaches — Arkansas' Bret Bielema, Auburn's Gus Malzahn, Kentucky's Mark Stoops and Tennessee's Butch Jones — are just as eager to make a good impression in the elite Southeastern Conference.

The SEC is arguably college football's toughest conference, leaving new coaches little room for error.

It's a massive challenge filled with risk, but it's also a unique opportunity few can pass up.

Bielema spent seven seasons at Wisconsin, where he turned the Badgers into one of the best programs in the Big Ten, but that wasn't enough. The fiery coach surprised many when he left Wisconsin during the offseason for the Arkansas job.

"You're talking about a guy who's been to the Rose Bowl three times and leaves a Big Ten job for, at best, a team that is now fourth in the SEC West," said CBS Sports college football analyst Tony Barnhart.

Then why leave?

"I think coaches are intrigued not only by the competition, but of the resources," Barnhart said. "There's more money for assistant coaches, there's more money for recruiting, there's more money for everything and therein lies the challenge, but therein also lies the pressure."

Jones addressed that pressure during the league's annual football media kickoff earlier this month when he said, "Everyone asks me, what's it like to be in the SEC? The best analogy I can give you is every day in the SEC is it's like fourth-and-one for the national championship."

However being a member of the SEC also makes you an easy target, especially among the media and coaches in other conferences. Stoops found that out when he was asked about comments his brother, Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops, made questioning the overall strength of the league.

"I don't think any of us need to defend what's going on here in the SEC," Mark Stoops said. "The success we've had in the SEC speaks for itself."

It's success that only one of the four freshman coaches has experienced.

Gus Malzahn was the offensive coordinator at Auburn from 2009-11, calling plays during the Tigers' national championship win in 2010. It's that familiarity with the program and the SEC that some believe will help put him and the Tigers on the fast track to success.

"Of the four new coaches in the league, I think Gus Malzahn will have the most success," Barnhart added, pointing to the fact that the learning curve for the first-year coach won't be as steep.

The four new coaches must work quickly to rebuild struggling program and develop strong connections with players, recruits and fans. Those connections have been sorely lacking in some cases, but most of the new coaches insist they are starting to see results.

At Kentucky, the Wildcats drew more than 40,000 fans to the team's spring game and at Tennessee, the Vols had more than 20,000 fans attend a fall scrimmage last week.

Good signs for programs looking to bounce back and keep up with the rest of the SEC.

CBS Sports will open the college football season on the road for one of the nation's most anticipated matchups of the year as defending national champion Alabama travels to College Station to take on Texas A&M Saturday, Sept. 14. The network will air its pregame, halftime and postgame studio show — College Football Today — from Kyle Field starting at 2:30 p.m. Host Tim Brando and analysts Brian Jones and Spencer Tillman along with Tony Barnhart and Archie Manning will headline the show. Verne Lundquist, Gary Danielson and Tracy Wolfson will call the game as the network kicks off its 13th season of covering the Southeastern Conference.

Alabama tops in AP poll

To no one's surprise, Alabama earned the top spot in this week's Associated Press top 25 college football poll. The two-time national champion Crimson Tide earned 58 of the possible 60 first-place votes to take the No. 1 spot in the rankings. Ohio State, which was second, earned one first-place vote and had 1,365 points. The poll was almost identical to the previously released USA Today coaches' poll. Alabama was one of six teams from the Southeastern Conference to find itself in the top 25, with five of those teams finding their way into the top 10: Alabama (1), Georgia (5), South Carolina (6), Texas A&M (7) and Florida (10).